R.Lum.R: A Different Kind Of Star

R&B artist Reggie Lamar Williams has a way with soaring falsettos and staccato synths and he might just be the game-changer the genre needed.

- Riddhi Chakraborty

A CONVERSATION WITH REGGIE Lamar Williams is best described as comfortable. Williams, who goes by the stage name R.Lum.R, is affable and funny, and the discussion feels completely natural, whether we’re talking about bands we love or our younger days as wannabe scene kids. He speaks with a familiarity associated to old friends and good memories, and it makes sense that his music has a similar effect.

Williams’ most famous track, 2016’s “Frustrated,” is reminiscent of artists like Frank Ocean, Daley and Flume, but is original in its delivery and lyricism. His style pulls in fans of the aforementioned musicians with just enough of the known while simultaneously bringing in a taste of something new. The 27-year-old musician seems to have mastered something plenty of artists struggle with: balance.

Originally from Bradenton, Florida, Williams started singing in churches when he was a kid, before taking up classical guitar in high school. “There was a lot of serendipity involved in my musical upbringing,” he says over the phone from Nashville, where he is currently based. “My grandmother had a church and I was nine when they realized I was always singing and making noise and stuff so they just put me in it. For some reason, as a kid I hated it, but I look back and it was really a formative experience.”

That wasn’t the only moment of serendipity in Williams’ career—how he embarked on the path to becoming an R&B musician was down to similar good fortune. He reveals that he was supposed to write a few tracks for other artists on a record label, but when he sent them in, producers were interested in making music with him instead. This led to the birth of R.Lum.R and Williams’ powerful, hard-hitting sound, made up of echoing percussion, staccato synths and soaring falsettos—basically the bones of his upcoming debut EP